Strange Lady

Hi everyone,
I'm sorry I haven't updated for a while but thank you for all your lovely messages. It's always a great pleasure to hear from you.

I thought I ought to update something today because it's Christmas after all...

Well, anyway my dears, HAPPY CHRISTMAS, and take care!

Love, Saya

-----------------------------
This story has been carefully translated from Japanese into English by me. Please do not copy/distribute it without permission. Thanks.

I heard this from my aunt.

My aunt one day received a letter from her son, who was living by himself at the time.
Below is roughly what was written in the letter:

"Come, come, I have toys and many sweets for you too."

When I was a child, a lady*1 often called out to me from upstairs.
I went upstairs and drew pictures with her.
Most of the pictures she drew were very creepy -- like pictures of a severed head or a hanged man.

When we had a dinner, the lady never ate with us but just stood there laughing.

One day when I was playing outside, the lady was looking out the square-shaped ventilator underneath the floor of the house,*2 and she was laughing.
I wonder what she was doing there.

Once when I went to see her upstairs and opened the door, she was changing clothes.
Her skin was festering and covered in boils and she looked as though she was suffering from some kind of disease.

Mother, who was that lady?

My aunt and uncle laughed saying their son had already gone senile although he was still a college student.
My aunt then made a phone call to him saying,
"Sweetheart, I'm the only female in the family, you remember?"

The son said,
"Huh?....fzzzz....What?..zzz.... Sorry, I didn't catch your words.
So did you remember then? The lady is actually here with me right now."

Beep.

The phone went dead.

My aunt, now scared, quickly went over to her son's house.
But by that time he had already committed suicide by setting himself on fire in the nearby park.

My aunt, making a scary face, said to me, "even if someone calls you while you're in this house, you must ignore it, OK?"
Since then I avoid going over to her house as much as I can.



---------------------------------------------------
*1 a lady : お姉ちゃん (oneh-chan) in Japanese, literally meaning "older sister." Mostly kids use it to address any young lady they encounter even if she's not blood-related to them.

*2 a square-shaped ventilator underneath the floor of the house: perhaps he's talking about a ventilator like the one in the picture on the right.